KRASNOYARSK, January 13. /TASS/. Basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, who returned earlier this month to Russia after being held in France, has signed a contract with Russian basketball club Yenisei Krasnoyarsk, the club’s press office said in a statement on Tuesday.

The statement said Kasatkin’s contract is for the 2026/2027 season, but did not specify the sum.

Kasatkin, 26, previously played for Moscow MBA basketball club. In the 2024/2025 season he averaged 6.0 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 0.4 steals in 18 minutes.

The Russian player was arrested at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport on June 21, 2025 at the request of US authorities. He was suspected of being part of a hacker group responsible for ransomware attacks targeting US companies and federal agencies. The Investigative Chamber at the Paris court, having reviewed on July 9, 2025 an appeal for release filed by Kasatkin's lawyer, decided to keep the athlete in custody after lengthy deliberations, despite assurances from his lawyer that he would remain in France and not skip bail.

On October 29, 2025, the Paris Court of Appeal approved a US request to extradite the Russian athlete. On January 8, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that Kasatkin had returned home in exchange for French national Laurent Vinatier who was serving time in Russia (designated as a foreign agent in Russia).

Vinatier was detained in Moscow in early June 2024. On October 14, Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky district court found him guilty on charges of evading the duties under the Russian foreign agents law (part 3, article 330.1 of the Russian Criminal Code). Vinatier was sentenced to three years in a penitentiary colony.

According to investigators, from August 23, 2021, to August 26, 2022, the man collected data about military and military-technical activities, and the mobilization campaign, of which he was obliged to notify a relevant Russian authority. The French national reportedly received information about the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine, and about operational combat forecasts.